Cronos's Stomach and Escape

A/N: Hera is not my favorite Greek Goddess, true. But I wanted to show that Hera isn't just a mindless machine out there to kill off Zeus's loves because she's a grumpy, jealous old lady. I decided to give some more insight into her story. Here's the result. Hope you like it! Please review.

When we sprang, fully-grown, from our father's stomach, we were happy to be alive. Nothing else mattered. Demeter had started to feel so cooped up and frustrated that flowers began to crop up in Cronos's inside. They cheered the place up for everyone but grumpy Hades, who wilted them and complained. Hestia wanted to try to burn our way out, but we all agreed that wouldn't work very well. Poseidon was all for flooding Kronos's stomach and in time the fickle Titan might throw it up and us as well. No one wanted that. While they all discussed ways to get us out of our fleshy, unpleasant prison, I sat in a corner and hugged my knees to my chest, watching the acid water lap at my bare ankles and hating everything about this place: The smell – it reeked of countless disgusting things – the feel – it was the most unpleasant thing I would ever feel – and the atmosphere, which was tense and stressful. Even though I wanted out of our father's stomach as much as, if not more, than my siblings, I had no ideas and all I could do was feel miserable.

'Hera, don't sit there like a piece of Cronos's digested food and come help us plan a way out!' Hades growled at me. But all I could do was close my eyes and hug my knees tighter; I hated it here more than all of them combined. I hated it so much it clouded my mind and I couldn't think. Why couldn't we have had a normal father? One who didn't swallow his children for fear that they would steal his throne? We wanted none of that. And besides, why did he have to swallow his daughters as well as his sons? It was a son that was prophesied to overthrow him! But, I thought maliciously, if and when I got out of here, I would attempt to take his throne, in revenge. By swallowing me he had created his enemy. If he had only loved his children…

'Hera! We need your ideas too,' Poseidon's voice lapped and then crashed over me like a wave. But I shook my head at him and huddled closer into myself. Myself. It was all I had left. I was miserable and we would never get out of here. We had been trying for close to a thousand years and I knew better than they did that we had no hope. It was all over, we would be here for ever, why even try? Hopeless…

As though she had read my mind, my kind sister Demeter's voice echoed in the hollowness that was our father's stomach. She inched toward me and whispered words for me alone. 'Hera, I know it seems hopeless. You have always been the one to give up first, to fall into despair before the rest of us. But it's not hopeless! Winter feels hopeless, but then spring always comes. Always! And so our freedom is guaranteed. It will come.' Leaning in even closer to me to make absolutely sure no one heard, Demeter added, 'Have you noticed we are three, but our brothers are only two? There is someone who has not been swallowed yet. And he will help set us free.' Her word washed over me like spring washes over and diminishes winter, and they erased some of my most hopeless thoughts. It seemed like we would never get out, ever, but during winter it seemed like spring would never come. Yet it did, year after year, without fail. Sometimes it was delayed, true, but it was always worth the wait.

Raising my head, I let my eyes meet Demeter's soft brown ones. She had a pleasing smile on her face that warmed me the way the weather warms when summer arrives and overtakes spring. Somehow she was able to smile and even laugh in this dismal place. Her golden curls bounced freely as she sat up from the crouching position she had assumed to comfort me and walked back over to our siblings. Swiping angrily at my tears, I joined them and finished their circle. As I sat down next to my sister Demeter, she squeezed my hand and flashed me another warming smile. I had filled an empty space. But next to me there was another one, next to Poseidon. Could what Demeter had said to me be more than comforting words? Was there really another brother who would come help us?

'As you know, we have been here for a long time and someone should come help us soon. They haven't yet, however, and so we should stand up for ourselves and try our own means of getting out of here. Now, I personally think we should-' Poseidon's commanding voice was interrupted by the regular sound of gulping that we heard as Cronos ate his food. But there was also a gagging sound this time and some heaves. Looking up and breaking the circle by jumping to our feet, we watched a few green leaves drift nonchalantly to our feet. Picking one up, Demeter yelled over the retching noises.

'It's a leaf from a Ginso tree. If you eat it you-' Demeter's words were stopped as she let out a scream of fright; a huge wave advanced on us. I let my voice join hers in screaming and covered my head with my arms as the wave overtook us. Our screams, as well as Hestia's attempts to calm us, bubbled on our lips and died as we were plunged underneath the liquid. My arms were pulled away from my head by the force of the wave and I attempted to swim, flailing wildly. Bubbles were wrenched from my mouth and the air I had in my lungs began to dwindle and fade…

Then suddenly my head was shoved above the water and I bobbed, spluttering and gasping and looking around me in amazement; we were no longer inside of our father. We were…We were free! I wanted to shout my jubilation, but the wave grabbed me and pushed me roughly under once again. This time I was even more unprepared and my eyes were open, looking around me at the water in which I had been carried out of my dreaded prison. There were the two leaves of the Ginso tree, which I realized must have properties to make a being retch, and I stretched out a hand to grab at them, but they were pulled by the strong current away from my groping hands. I could see the rock wrapped in a baby's cloth that had fallen into Cronos's stomach beside us, but the blanket had been ripped away from the rock by the force of the wave and floated freely beside me. For that I did not reach out my hand, but pulled it away.

And there was Demeter, not even bothering to flail her limbs as I had, hanging as though lifeless, suspended by the water, her hair floating behind her. I wanted to swim over and help her, see if she was still alive, but the wave was still too strong. I struggled against the powerful water, trying to shout out to my older sister to hold on; I would be there as soon as I could. But the words didn't get far past my lips once they had been released, and I gave up. I could not save Demeter. But I could save myself. I could feel that the air I had left in my lungs being slowly teased and pulled away from me, and I knew I had to fight. It was winter but spring was in view. Vainly I struggled against the liquid, trying to bring myself back to the surface I had a hard time believing existed at all. Maybe I was outside of the prison that my father's stomach posed as, but I had been flung into another. Soon I felt as though I would end up as Demeter, who had been pulled away from me. Not being able to see her was even more worrying than seeing her in such a state. I was beginning to lose all hope of the surface or of spring.

As I flailed hopelessly, all the while fighting, I watched, panicking, as my siblings floated past. Hades seemed to be letting himself sink, and I wanted to help him as he gently fell to the bottom as quickly as a rock and stayed there, making no effort to bring himself to the surface. Hestia looked utterly defeated; water had always been her weakness and fires her pleasure. It looked as though she was trying to claw her way to the surface, but she was sinking just like Hades all the while through her efforts. I wanted to reach out to my sister, even though she had never been very compassionate to me, reserved and a little mysterious. I loved her all the same. At that moment I loved everything, especially the little air I had left. How could I not, as my life was tottering on the edge of the cliff of life and would soon fall into the pit of death?

And then Poseidon came. He was holding on to the water as though it were a rein, a huge smile on his face, his long, curly dark hair flying out behind him. Strangely, my outspoken older brother was standing upright and looked very in control. Well, he had always loved the water. I saw that he had Demeter cradled tenderly in his arms and Hestia holding on to his ankles. It appeared he didn't see me, flailing, trying and succeeding to get near the surface. I was almost there when he passed underneath me and the force he created sent me spinning, losing control. My arms and legs were wrenched painfully as I was pulled toward the ground, and I could no longer even wave them around in imitation of swimming. I watched as Poseidon, far ahead of me now, picked up an unconscious Hades and made as if to look for me. But again he did not see me. I was afraid that it didn't matter, because I was already falling from the cliff of life and plunging into the pit of death….

People say that when you are dying your life flashes in front of your eyelids. I did not have much of a life to hold on to as I watched some grim scenes appear before me: There was us huddled together in Cronos's stomach as a particularly large morsel of food fell toward us. Us cowering as a rock wrapped in a blanket that looked faintly like a baby fell in our midst and almost crushed Demeter's skull. Us trying to talk about something cheerful and failing. Us planning. Us sobbing. Us giving up hope…At least I would die free, I thought. And then the pleasant scenes came: Demeter's huge smile and her soft, wide brown eyes appraising me and her lovely features laughing, cheering me up. Her bright golden curls bouncing up and down on her little shoulders. Hestia's dark eyes looking over me approvingly, her thin lips twitching into a smile, an unusual event. Her dark features brightening up as I said something she found funny. Her black-as-midnight hair sweeping my cheek faintly and pleasantly as she passed by. Poseidon's deep, green-blue eyes wide and excited, his bright features laughing, his long brown hair and his small beard floating around him as he summoned water for his own pleasure. Hades' black, black hair and the beard that grew only on his face whipping past as he paced. His beady black eyes looking gloomy. His thin lips stretched into a sneer as Poseidon suggested the possibility of escaping. And then the reflection of me that I had once seen in the water floating in Cronos's stomach: my light brown, slightly wavy, falling limply to my shoulders. My full, blood red lips pulled into a miserable frown. My cheeks full but not pudgy. My eyes a bright yet tainted green-bue like a peacock's feathers. I didn't know what pretty or beautiful was, but I supposed I could be one of those if only I could be happy.

So I tried hard, I made an effort, to be happy that I was out of that prison, happy that I would die free. Have you ever tried being happy just before you die? It doesn't work. I supposed that I would have to die unhappy. People would crowd around my body and declare, 'If she had managed to be happy like that golden-haired girl over there, she could have been pretty.' I tried to smile as I struggled to remain conscious. Maybe I succeeded, I don't know, but I knew it would only look ridiculous to have a smile on my face when I was so clearly unhappy. But that was ridiculous. I was fighting now against death, which I had no reason to hate, but I could not fight back in the prison of my father's stomach, something I hated so much. I had simply given into limp submission. And just before I could hold on to consciousness no longer, I vowed to myself that if I lived, or maybe even in the after-life, I would always fight things I knew were unjust.

And then, all at once, I was hit by an epiphany so strong, I managed to overcome the creeping feeling washing over me that would bring unconsciousness: What an empty vow if I just gave up and lay there, waiting for death! Everything I had ever known was unjust: The fact that my own father had swallowed me, the sad truth of how my mother didn't stop him, the terrible place I had been forced to stay in for a thousand miserable years, the awful conditions I lived with, and now this. There was so much to fight for! My life would not end this way as long as I still had it in my hands. And I did. My eyes flew open and I started to struggle once more, but this time I didn't flail just for the sake of trying to get free; I made wide arcs like sweeps with my arms, pointing them forward and making sure my head was toward the surface, kicked my feet in rhythm instead of completely at random. Soon I could feel I was making progress, getting closer, even though in a few moments my lungs would burst, and in a few more I would fall unconscious, and then drop dead to the ground, claimed by the water.

I wasn't very far from the surface, quite close in fact, when I felt the second, more powerful internal waves claim me, try to pull me into unconsciousness as the last of the breath I had left in my feeble yet struggling body evaporated. But no, I would not give up until my body completely failed me and I no longer had any control. As long as I could do something, I would. I could feel my eyelids flickering, my eyes closing, my body breaking down and failing me, when the tip of my fingertips broke free of the water; they had reached the surface, if not my whole body. Soon I had managed to push my whole hand above the water, and that was when a huge shudder shook me and my body fell completely limp, the hand falling back into the liquid as my body slowly made its way to the bottom. I had been so close…No one could say, at least, that I had died without trying my hardest to save myself. That was all that mattered.